Entries in Anita Perry
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Tom Williams/Roll Call(SPARTANBURG, S.C.) -- Donning a rhinestone “PERRY 2012″ pin on her sweater, Anita Perry knocked on doors on the tree-lined Fairlane Drive here in South Carolina this morning, pressing residents to consider voting for her husband in this presidential election.

“I’m out walking and hoping I can get people to vote for Rick Perry this morning for president,” she said as she spoke with a voter in the doorway of her home.

One woman told Perry she hoped the governor would perform better in Saturday night’s debate, but noted his slip-up Wednesday night showed he was human.

“Maybe he won’t stumble tonight,” the woman told Perry as she walked down the steps of her home.

“I hope not,” Perry answered with a laugh.

“That’s OK, that was quite fun. I think it showed he was human-like,” the woman said.

Perry promoted her husband’s economic plan as she stopped at the home of Richard Bagnell, who was decked out in a blue and orange striped polo shirt and a Clemson hat in preparation for Saturday’s game against Wake Forest.

“His Cut, Balance and Grow, balance the budget by 2020, and you can have a flat tax of 20 percent or you can do under the tax bracket where you are — we are now. It will eliminate the death tax. Should you die, you don’t lose your home as well and end the IRS as we know it today,” Perry said. “Social Security will be there for you under his plan, but for your 15-year-old and your son that just got back from Afghanistan, he wants to stand up for the young people and make sure it’s going to be there for them also.”

Bagnell, whose 23-year-old son Jay just returned from serving in Afghanistan, said he will likely wait until the day before the primary to make a decision on which candidate he will support, but said he hasn’t disqualified Perry based on his debate gaffe.

“I will actually make my decision as probably a lot of the Republicans when it comes the day before. I read every day what everybody has to say and I look at things and I see what other people react to them, because I know everybody tries to take a weakness, just like Gov. Perry had a little gaffe. That’s human,” Bagnell said. “Those things don’t bother me. That’s what I filter out. I want to hear substance. I want to hear specificity, and I want to hear clarity just exactly what you’ll do and how true.”

Anita Perry walked the neighborhood with Katon Dawson, the chair of the Perry campaign in South Carolina, and volunteers who continued the block walk after the Texas first lady left.

Dawson said most South Carolinians are still undecided in this election, and he argued Perry’s handling of the slip-up in Wednesday’s debate has proven he possesses the leadership and character that will resonate with voters, regardless of how difficult the recovery from the blunder will be.

“Rick Perry’s going to fit really well with this state, and his leadership ability, his character integrity have shown in the last couple of days,” Dawson said. “It’s never easy. It wasn’t easy before. I mean, ‘Oops’ kind of made it human, you know. I mean at the end of the day, it was something that happened.”

Tom Williams/Roll Call(WASHINGTON) -- As the Herman Cain and Rick Perry campaigns bicker over who leaked the sexual harassment allegations against Cain, Texas first lady Anita Perry told ABC News she was saddened by the “finger pointing” between the two sides and warned it is “not good” for the Republican Party.

“The finger pointing that’s going on with all of this is unfortunate, and it makes me sad,” Mrs. Perry said in a phone interview with ABC News. “It makes me sad to see this. It’s not good for our party. It’s not about what this election is about.”

Mrs. Perry said she was with her husband Sunday night when they first learned of the story.

“We knew nothing about this until we saw it both at the same time on the Internet Sunday night,” Mrs. Perry said.

Cain and his campaign aides tried to pinpoint the leak of the story on Gov. Perry and his campaign Wednesday. Perry has adamantly denied his campaign was the source of the story and shared similar disappointment to that expressed by his wife about the blame game playing out in the aftermath.

“We found out about these allegations at the same time as I suppose everybody else did, read about them online and our campaign had absolutely nothing to do with it,” Perry said in an interview with RedState’s Erick Erickson. ”You know, I’m disappointed that there’s finger pointing going on. And the sooner we get back to talking about the issues that are important to the people of this country, the better, and that’s how do we get Americans working again.”

Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Anita Perry, the wife of GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry, was the latest conservative figure to chide President Obama for saying last week that the American people have “lost our ambition.”

During a short speech in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night, Perry said she was “astounded” by the president’s comments.

“Mr. President, if Americans have lost their ambition it’s because you taxed it out of them,” Perry said.

Perry said there was a “significance” to Tuesday’s date being Nov. 1, 2011, or 11-1-11.

“The significance of so many ones is that it is exactly one year and one week until President Obama becomes a one-term president,” Perry said to applause at the fundraiser for the conservative American Spectator magazine.

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was originally slated to headline the event, but she backed out two weeks ago.

GOP presidential contender Herman Cain made a surprise appearance at the fundraiser, saying he was “thrilled” to stop by because of the “special nature” of the event, which was held to honor conservative thinker Robert Bartley.

Cain avoided any questions about the recently surfaced allegations that he sexually harassed two women while serving as CEO of the National Restaurant Association, accusations he has denied over the past three days.

Tom Williams/Roll Call/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- In an attempt to sympathize with unemployed workers in South Carolina Friday, Anita Perry likened her son’s resignation from an investment banking job to the frustration felt by the unemployed in America.

An audience member at Dyers Diner in Pendleton, S.C. explained that he lost his six-figure job and now works at an hourly rate, according to attendees at the event.

The struggle to find a well paying job changed his outlook on unemployment in this country.

“I used to be looking at people ‘ah you deserved what you got.’ I used to be that way, I’m just being completely honest, you know the reason you’re in a bad situation is because you’re just a loser,” the audience member said. “I was a mean guy. I thought you went out and got that big bonus because you worked hard and that God didn’t give it to me, I got it. You know so, it’s a different thing.”

Perry, wife of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, proceeded to tell him she sympathized with him and shared her frustration that her son had to quit his job at Deutsche Bank after federal regulations barred him from campaigning for his father.

“Our son had resigned his job because of the federal regulations that Washington has put on us,” Anita said. “He resigned his job two weeks ago. Because he can’t go out and campaign for his father because of SEC regulations.”

Last week, Griffin Perry told ABC News he quit his job at Deutsche Bank to open a consulting firm, which would allow him to campaign more on behalf of his father, but he did not mention any federal regulations steering his decision.

Griffin Perry is campaigning in Florida Saturday and will attend a picnic for the Hispanic Republican Club of Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties as well as touring the Tampa Gun Show and touring the Hillsborough County Fair.